Malema slams land reform detractors 'protecting white privilege'

Those opposed to land expropriation without compensation were protecting white privilege at expense of black people, said EFF leader Julius Malema. Picture: Mike Hutchings/Reuters

Parliament - Those opposed to land expropriation without compensation were protecting white privilege at the expense of black people, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema told MPs on Tuesday.

"This is in defence of white privilege which seeks to perpertuate the landlessness among our people," Malema said while participating in the debate in the National Assembly on a report by the Constitutional Review Committee recommending that section 25 of the Constitution should be changed to explicitly provide for land expropriation without compensation.

Malema went further, accusing those opposed to changing the status quo where white people, the minority in South Africa, owned the majority of land, of herd mentality.

"White people who came, all of them, poor or rich, the landless white people, all of them came in unison and opposed the expropriation of land without compensation because the reality is that where white interests and privilege is threatened, they protect one another and they don't care when the other is in the wrong."